


Until The Levee

by rainbowballz



Category: Gargoyles (TV)
Genre: 22 Years Later, Angst, Character death in later chapters, Drug Addiction, Everyone Is Poly Because Gargoyles, F/F, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, IN A LOT OF PAIN THAT'S WHERE, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M, Multi, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Polyamorous Relationships, Pregnancy, Where is the Wyvern Clan in 2016?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-17
Updated: 2016-12-13
Packaged: 2018-08-22 23:04:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8304641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainbowballz/pseuds/rainbowballz
Summary: Twenty-two years after waking in Manhattan, the Wyvern clan finds themselves scattered, fractured, and lost. As their eldest begins to wane from old age, Goliath and the others must reconcile and come to terms with how modern times have changed not only themselves, but what it means to be a Gargoyle in the new millennia. It is here that they find some goodbyes make way for new beginnings.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SylverLining](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SylverLining/gifts).



> *arrives to a fandom 20 years late with starbucks* oh shit whaddup
> 
> so i know all my gargoyles fic is very specifically tailored to my headcanons (poly&queer trio namely) but i hope y'all like it anyway. it's really sad but it's #goodshit
> 
> there's gonna be gargoyles smut sprinkled throughout and it's all gay so if that's not your thing, you know. whatever.
> 
> the title comes from a joy williams song of the same title. it's super angsty and is the soundtrack of this fic.
> 
> enjoy!

Night bleeds blue sky black with a blush of red dusk at the horizon. The Earth, forever trapped in a dichotomous love affair between night and day, turns away from the sun to favor its cosmic opposite. There is only a sliver of her, the curve of a celestial archer's bow concaved by shadow. The spray of stars around her act as a mirror of the city lights below. Manhattan spires rise like they ache to puncture the very heavens, halted only by human limitations - all except for one, the Eyrie building, which disappears above the clouds. 

It is here that what remains of the Wyvern clan awakens. 

Stone skin showers from renewed gargoyle flesh in an explosive transition from slumber to consciousness to the tune of a fatigued growl softening into a yawn. Goliath stretches, rolls his neck to try and release the ever building tension accumulating there, knowing full well that it will not make a difference. One hand threads four taloned claws into a mane of black hair peppered gray at the temples, shaking dust of stone sleep free. The other hand comes instead to his face, rubbing at two still closed eyes, then pinching the bridge of his nose between them. He takes a long, deep breath, wings extending on either side, and releases the breath from his mouth in a cloud of warm steam that curls like smoke toward the sky.

Another winter is sinking its icy fingers into the heart of Manhattan. For a moment, Goliath's mind trails to the coming holiday season, having grown familiar with the human custom of family gatherings and gift giving over the past twenty-two years. He is transported instantly back in time to their very first Christmas, the memory as vivid and as sharp as if it had happened only the night before. The memory is red and green: he sees Elisa, young and spry and arms full of boxes wrapped in bright paper. There is the trio wearing matching stocking hats. Bronx, chewing happily on a meter long bone with a red bow tied in the middle, and Hudson -

A surprised jolt ripples through Goliath like a large stone dropped in water. He jerks, whirling with the sound of air caught in his wings, searching the stone column beside him with a knot of panic in his chest. It immediately unwinds with a sigh of relief when he finds Hudson right where Goliath left him, leaning his weight onto a cane gripped in one hand while the other fingers the hilt of the sword at his hip. 

Hudson's eyes, one scarred yellow and the other eclipsed with white, are turned skyward, in search of a moon he hasn't seen in nearly two years, and will never see again. 

"You know," Hudson says, as if continuing a conversation that had never been interrupted in the first place, "It's nights like these when I miss my dear friend Robbins."

A slow, sad smile touches Goliath's lips. He steps down from the center pillar and comes to Hudson's side. Hudson turns toward the familiar sound of Goliath's feet on stone and extends a trembling hand for his aide. Goliath takes it firmly and lowers his elder carefully from the column back to the flat surface of the castle turret, only releasing him when Hudson's balance is assured by the cane. 

"I miss Jeffrey as well," Goliath says. In his mind he sees the man with his loyal dog sitting across from Hudson, drunk as pirates, red in the face and swapping the same old stories over and over again. The memory warms his heart for a moment, only for a chilly winter wind to chase it away.

Goliath realizes he has no idea what happened to Robbins' dog.

"How long has it been now?" Hudson sucks his lower lip over absent teeth in thought. "Can't be more than a year."

There is strain in Goliath's face that he's thankful Hudson cannot see. "Almost three, Hudson," he says, as gently as he can.

"No!" Hudson barks, a flicker of confusion and anger building in the space between his white brows. Blind eyes search a field of darkness for something to contradict Goliath's truth. "Three years since Robbins died? Can't be. Feels like I just seen him ..." His shoulders sag so deeply that Goliath fears he might sink right to the floor. Just as suddenly his face cracks into a wide smile and he guffaws with laughter. "That ol' bastard never even saw me! Blinder than I am now, wasn't he?" Hudson slaps his free hand against his knee. "Oh, he would have liked that one, wouldn't he?"

Goliath smiles. "I believe he would have. Let's go find Broadway for breakfast."

"Ah, breakfast. Could do for some of that coffee Elisa is so fond of ..."

Goliath leads Hudson by the elbow down a set of spiral stairs but once they reach the corridor Hudson huffs and tells him to leave him be. Goliath does, walking with his wings clasped at his breastbone, matching Hudson's slow shuffle in stride. 

In the beginning Hudson was hostile to any attempt at assisting him, even when it was clear that all of his sight was gone. The cane is still relatively new in Hudson's hands, his grip not even worn into its handle, but after a nearly crippling fall a few months prior it became clear that pretending he was as agile as he'd been twenty years ago was not only foolish, but dangerous as well. Hudson had become more docile since, especially after Broadway returned to the castle to live full time as his round the clock caretaker, but every day seems more and more dim as Hudson's mind wanes under old age.

Goliath's jaw tightens at the thought. He wills it away as they pursue the corridor. Shafts of moonlight crawl through arched windows, bleaching their skin white as they pass through them. 

"Where's Angela?" Hudson asks as they turn a corner. "She's not been here the past couple nights."

Goliath is encouraged by Hudson's moment of clarity and wishes he could lie to his closest friend to make the moment a warm one. "I do not know. Visiting with one of her friends, I am sure."

"If we're really unlucky, she'll take after her father," Hudson teases, smiling crookedly. "And she'll fall in love with one of those humans."

Goliath's face falls. The back of his fingers brush Hudson's left wing, signaling a coming turn, and Hudson follows. 

"What's with you, lad?" Hudson sticks an elbow into Goliath's side. "Awfully quiet." Hudson's steps abruptly stop. One hand flies to his heart and squeezes. "Did something happen to Elisa? Did I forget - ?"

"No, no, Hudson." Goliath puts his hands on Hudson's shoulders to calm the older gargoyle's sudden shaking. "Elisa is fine."

The hand at Hudson's heart unfurls with a deep sigh of relief but his face remains warped with concern. 

"But she can't walk." His eyes turn toward the floor, searching for a memory he didn't know he forgot. "That did happen, didn't it?"

Goliath swallows hard. He nods, remembering that Hudson cannot see him several seconds later. "Yes. That did happen. She was injured while she was working, remember?" 

"Yes." Hudson's brows struggle to meet over his nose. "She fell. Why didn't - why didn't one of us catch her?"

Goliath's eyes close tightly. Because I was not there, he thinks, the words burning the back of his tongue, but he does not speak them. He sees Elisa, for the second time, lying in a hospital bed, fighting for her life. He sees her family crying over her, for the second time, only this time Goliath is in the hospital room instead of standing outside the window. He sees Broadway falling to his knees as the doctor explains that, because of a previous spinal injury, she cannot fully recover.

He shakes the memories away. Swallows thickly and opens his eyes again. 

"Broadway probably has breakfast ready for us. Let's not keep him waiting."

Goliath hates shifting gears on Hudson so quickly, as if he is trying to trick a child, but he is relieved when Hudson softens and nods, falling into step again toward the dining hall. When they reach it they find two cups of steaming coffee already waiting for them, as well as two tall stacks of toast and an open bottle of jam. 

Broadway emerges from the kitchen just as Goliath has pulled out a seat for Hudson, who reaches for his coffee, misses twice, and then finally clasps the warm mug in his hands. Chipped talons click on the ceramic and the old man smiles to himself as he brings the mug to his lips. 

"Be careful," Broadway says, arms crossing as he leans in the threshold of the dining hall and the kitchen. "It's fresh out the pot."

"Ah, hush," Hudson scoffs, forming an 'o' with his lips and easing his breath across the surface of the brew. "Hot bean water never hurt a gargoyle."

Broadway chuckles and shakes his head. "Suit yourself. Eggs and bacon'll be ready in a minute." He meets Goliath's eyes across the room and his smile touches his eyes.

Goliath mirrors the gesture but his mind is too troubled with other thoughts for it to be as genuine. Even though the trio had started adapting to more traditional human clothing nearly ten years ago, Goliath still isn't used to seeing their kind dress in this way. Under Broadway's apron he wears black slacks held up by a leather belt, and a long sleeved, navy blue shirt that buttons all the way to his neck, specifically tailored to accommodate for the extra appendages at his back. Usually he also wears a hat and a long coat, gifts from Matt Bluestone and Elisa respectively, but since returning to the castle he's kept to a more casual appearance - casual in human terms, perhaps. As far as Goliath is concerned, pants and a shirt still scream P.I. Broadway to him. 

Twenty years ago, when the trio would put on human clothes, it was an act of dress-up, a costume to pretend in. For lack of a better word, it was cute. Goliath found it endearing at the time. Now it is something else entirely - the trio are adults by both human and gargoyle standards. All three of them have lives outside of the clan, deeply rooted in human culture, and each in their own way have adapted to fit those new lifestyles, even though it means stepping further and further away from the gargoyle path. 

Goliath struggles still to come to peace with this.

Hudson, Angela, and Goliath are the only ones who still wear the traditional gargoyle dress, the same cloths and thick leather belts from centuries ago. Angela was the last of the young ones to dip her toes in the water of human culture. Recently, she's become almost submerged. She's never gone this many days without reporting back to the castle. Goliath is doing his best to respect this - Angela is not a child. He cannot control what she does or who she spends her time with. But Goliath also cannot deny that he had hoped, somewhere deep inside of him, that Angela would have resisted what the trio could not, if just to have one hatchling to continue the old ways. 

A familiar ache in Goliath's chest summons the same terrible thought: perhaps this is the end of the old ways. 

He doesn't realize that he has beens staring blankly at the empty kitchen entryway until Broadway is suddenly upon him, a gentle hand resting on Goliath’s forearm.

"I'm sorry I didn't head up there to sleep with you guys," Broadway says, his eyes and words directed at Hudson but his grip still steady on Goliath. "Bronx and I fell asleep reading."

Hudson chuckles around a piece of toast in his mouth, crumbs tumbling down the front of his long beard. "If I didn't know any better, I'd say you weren't the same gargoyle I knew as a hatchling." 

"I could say the same thing about you, you know." Broadway is smiling, but it is sad. He touches Hudson at the shoulder. "You were quite the avid reader yourself."

"Wish I still could be. Not that I don't like you reading to me, Broadway. You've got yourself a fine reading voice. But I'd like to read on my own again ... maybe Robbins could teach me that, oh, what's it called? The little bumps that he reads with his fingers.” Hudson flexes his fingers in the air. “It's too bad Bronx makes a better beast than a seeing eye dog, eh? Robbins and I could just about be twins then." Hudson laughs, slapping an open palm on the table. 

Despite himself, Goliath jumps at the sudden sound. 

"I'm going to go check on your breakfast, Hudson. Goliath and I will be right back." Broadway's grip on Goliath's forearm has become firm. "I'll send Bronx in to sit with you."

"That'd be nice. That old dog understands me better sometimes than anyone else ..." 

Hudson continues on even as Broadway and Goliath leave the room, stepping into the kitchen where Bronx is lying at the foot of the stove. There is evidence that a bacon strip was either given to him or stolen in the form of crumbs under his paws. At the sight of them Bronx's stump of a tail begins to thump against the floor and his mouth opens, tongue lolling over one side. A beastly smile if Goliath ever saw one. 

Like Hudson, Bronx’s age is becoming harder to ignore; in earlier days he would beg to accompany the clan wherever they went but now prefers to doze quietly at Hudson’s feet. His movements are slow and careful and more than once Goliath has had to carry him in both arms up the spiral stairs to his resting place because the climb is too painful for his arthritic joints. Blotches of discolored skin have started to form around the ridges at his back, typical of a beast in his later years, and every time Goliath looks at him he is reminded of how Elisa’s cat looked the day she took him to be put down (a practice of mercy Goliath was unfamiliar with at the time) -- white around his nose and eyes, his thin gray body a fragile shell. Goliath said goodbye to Cagney just as the sun was rising, his finger gently scratching beneath the feline’s chin when he turned to stone, and in the evening his hand was empty, and Elisa was still crying.

"Go on, boy.” Broadway wraps one arm under Bronx’s belly to help hoist him to his feet. “Keep the old man company." 

As he waddles past, Goliath leans down and gives the beast a good scratch behind the ear with a small smile. He hovers in the doorway and watches as Bronx goes right to Hudson's side and drops his heavy head in the old gargoyle's lap. Hudson smiles, blind eyes blinking with fondness at the beast, one hand smoothing down Bronx's thick neck. 

For several moments, neither Goliath nor Broadway speak. Broadway adjusts his apron and tends to the simmering food on the stove. He swiftly flips a series of eggs with one hand and bacon with the other using steel instruments Goliath doesn't even know the names of. He still doesn't quite understand exactly how the kitchen works and at this point he is embarrassed to ask; the stove, for example, doesn't even produce a flame. The temperature is changed by pushing a button. A thousand years ago, Goliath would have regarded it as sorcery, and Broadway a sorcerer. It still seems just as otherworldly in his opinion. 

Broadway is surely the expert here, very comfortable, and while it warms Goliath's heart to see him at home in his surroundings again, it still gives Goliath pause to know that Broadway and the other young ones rarely need his guidance anymore. There is nothing new that he can teach them -- if he's being perfectly honest, they probably have much more to teach him than he will ever know.

"Yesterday was such a good day for him," Broadway says, his voice so quiet that it is nearly lost under the bubbling of food frying on the stove. His eyes stare directly at the food but Goliath has the impression that he is not seeing it. "Fairly lucid. Remembered a lot of things accurately. Barely got off track once. And now he's back to this again, thinking Robbins is alive." Broadway sighs and runs the back of his shirt sleeve across his forehead. "I thought he was getting better."

"This evening when he woke, he was under the impression that Jeffrey had passed, but could not recall when it happened." Goliath crosses his arms and leans his back against the kitchen wall. 

Broadway stares at him with wide, worried eyes. "He went from that extreme to this one so quickly? Gods." Broadway tilts his head back and sighs with such awful feeling that Goliath regrets saying anything at all. Broadway returns to the food with less enthusiasm than before, scraping the cooked eggs onto a large platter and topping it with long strips of bacon. After the stove is cleared he turns it off with a tap of one talon on the lit panel and then stands there, holding the plate, staring at it but not moving, not saying another word. 

"He's going to be fine," Goliath says, but doesn't believe those words any more than Broadway does. "He is old. Old gargoyles forget things. And besides, he was very close to Jeffrey, it was very traumatic for him to lose his friend-"

"Goliath." Broadway finally lifts his eyes. They are sad and heavy and Goliath feels tired under the weight of them. "Don't. I'm not a hatchling. And Hudson is not just old." Broadway looks toward the door, out into the other room where Hudson is mumbling something to a very attentive Bronx. "He's waning. I think he's, he's dy-"

"No!" Goliath's wings snap open, and there is a touch of white in his vision that wasn't there a moment before. When Broadway comes back into focus he sees the younger gargoyle a step back, watching him with something akin to fear. Heart thundering in his ears, Goliath pulls his wings back over his breastbone and clasps them together, averting his eyes. "He is not dying." 

Even speaking the words aloud feels like he is asking the universe to challenge him. 

Broadway takes a long, steadying breath through his nose. When he speaks again, it is with much more collection in his tone than Goliath. 

"I don't know if you've noticed this in yourself, but you have a tendency to deny violently what you fear the most, even when it's literally right in front of you. I could give you some examples, but I'm sure you remember."

Goliath's eyes briefly close. On each eyelid is Hudson and Broadway, twenty years younger, begging him to abandon the castle. 

"No amount of denial is going to prevent the inevitable, Goliath. We need to be ready. I think ... I think it might be time to bring the others home."

Something inside of him feels like it is about to break. Goliath places a hand on his chest as if that might mend it.

Broadway says nothing further. He steps out of the kitchen and makes his way back to the table. Goliath lingers in the kitchen a moment more, watching from the threshold as Broadway places the plate before Hudson and hovers at his side, one hand on the old man's shoulder, talking, but Goliath isn't listening. Goliath is staring at Hudson, committing every inch of him to memory, his crooked smile and his kind, wrinkled eyes, even the very scars on his skin.

As if sensing his leader's stare, Hudson's eyes cross the room. Goliath understands, logically, that Hudson cannot see him, but the old man smiles in his direction and Goliath tries to smile back. 

It is weak and it quickly falls apart.


	2. Chapter 2

"...police have yet to determine who is responsible for the vandalism on sixth avenue but have placed twenty-four hour surveillance in an effort to apprehend those responsible, leaving the avenue residents feeling more at ease..."

Broadway reads the words aloud but is hardly registering them. He dabs his middle finger against his tongue to turn the page. He's become so used to touch screens and tablets the past few years that reading from a newspaper feels almost archaic. When he takes the time to actually think about how rapidly technology had changed even in the two short decades since they woke from their spell it makes his head spin - he can only imagine what the world will look like two decades from now.

Lexington is probably more excited than anyone about future technology, he thinks to himself, smiling, only for it die along with the words in his mouth.

"Broadway?"

"Hm?" Broadway glances up and then jumps, shaking the paper in his hands. "Oh! Sorry. I was thinking."

"What about this time?" Hudson rocks in his chair with hands laced over his belly.

They're sitting across from each other in front of a fire Goliath built before leaving for patrol. Bronx lounges at Hudson's feet, asleep. The flames chase away the chill leaking through the castle walls, shadows dancing upon them.

There are few rooms left of the Wyvern castle that Xanatos has not renovated in some way; this one remains mostly in its original form, lacking even outlets for electricity. Broadway remembers it as Princess Katharine's bedroom - he remembers where her crib sat before it was exchanged for a bed much larger, how she used to lean out of the very window Hudson had his back to when she was still small enough to not be afraid of the gargoyles on the turrets above, how she'd watch them fly protective circles in the sky. And he remembers when her window shut with disdain, and how it never opened again.

Broadway finds himself staring at the space where the princess' large canopy bed used to sit, remembering how, when he was small, he wondered what sleeping in a bed must feel like.

He abruptly shakes his head and scans the newspaper to try and find where he left off.

"Nothing," he says, too quickly, clearing his throat.

"Lad, you know you can't lie to me. Can see right through ya." After a pause, Hudson laughs. "See right through ya, ha!"

A soft chuckle escapes Broadway's lips. "Is that going to be your thing now? Self deprecating humor?"

"Well, my thing used to be fighting humans, then robots and fae creatures and all sorts of things in between. But I'm not much use for that anymore, am I?" He says it very matter of factly, blind eyes blinking slowly at the fire. Orange flames reflect in one yellow sheathed eye, the other white. "Besides, if I can still make you laugh, then all's still well, ain't it lad?"

Broadway reaches out and wraps his hand around Hudson's wrist, the skin leathery and scarred.

"Don't think I forgot I asked you a question, now. I know my mind's not what it used to be but I know when you're trying to dodge me."

Withdrawing his hand, Broadway sighs, folding the newspaper neatly in his lap. "I know."

"What is it then? What's bothering you?"

He sucks his cheek between his teeth and chews, watching Hudson in thought. With Hudson, it is always a guessing game of what he will remember and what he won't; reading the paper to him can be a repeated exercise one day or something Hudson will listen to all the way through once and then mention a minute detail the next evening. On the one hand he risks Hudson repeating something to Goliath that might upset him, and on the other hand, Broadway lies to someone he loves - or worse, tricks Hudson into forgetting that he ever poised in the question in the first place.

None of them are particularly appealing options.

"It's cause you miss your work, eh?" Hudson drops one hand at the side of the chair, searching, and Bronx, one eye peeling open as if he can sense Hudson's movements, slowly cranes his head upward so the tips of Hudson's claws can drag along the top of his head.

Broadway blinks at the suggestion. He leans back in the chair and turns toward the fire, pupils blown orange, and tries to remember the last time he worked a case. Goliath asked him to come back to the castle to help with taking care of Hudson ... two months ago? Three? Had it been that long already? The memory is as vivid as yesterday and a hundred years ago all at once - Goliath holding his arms across chest like he was afraid to reveal it, shuffling in the doorway of Broadway's office, too big for it, too lost and alien even after twenty years in this world, afraid to admit the severity of Hudson's declining condition out loud, as if by refusing to do so would make it less of a reality.

Goliath did not say the words I think Hudson is dying then, and he still refuses to do so now, but they were written in his face. There was no time to really reflect on what it meant at the time, no time to be sad or ask questions. Broadway simply packed what he needed and he returned to the castle that very night with Goliath at his side.

Clan is always first, after all.

"Honestly, no," Broadway says, sighing again. "I mean, I liked my job. At first. But it was starting to … I don't know."

"Bore ya?"

He chuckled. "A little."

The last case he worked was one of infidelity. Again. Not the most exciting work and not the cases he preferred but by far the most popular. Another marriage broken because of his exposure of one partner's lies, more children traumatized by the inevitable divorce, and while Broadway knew it was just a job and that he wasn't the one doing anything wrong ... there was still a degree of guilt lingering inside of him after those cases, knowing that he played a role in turning even one child's entire world upside down.

It wasn't like it was in the beginning, over ten years ago, before Elisa … before. When Elisa was still on the force, and he'd just opened his own private investigating branch, the two of them partnered up together many times. They'd always made a great team, even more so after Elisa no longer had to worry about hiding Broadway or protecting his identity, and especially after Broadway trained at the police academy to polish his natural skills. Together they cracked down on organized crime, hunted weapon distributors in the city, waited in the shadows of known street alleys and caught dealers one by one. Those were the days Broadway loved what he did. It was almost exactly like the movies - heart in his ears, the thrill of the chase, one more bad guy locked up. He was every childhood dream realized.

But after … everything was different, after. Elisa was forced to retire. Broadway took on any case that came his way, even when the client couldn't pay the bill, just to absorb every moment of his time so there was nothing left for visits or catching up or feelings he refused to acknowledge. He shattered marriage vows, trailed after missing people, investigated home robberies that the police didn't have time for. He even went looking for lost dogs. From the moment he emerged from stone sleep until dawn thawed the edges of the world in the morning, Broadway worked.

Goliath's timing was impeccable, as it often was. The last infidelity case had just ended. The wife's ring still sat on his desk where she'd slammed it down before storming off with pictures of her husband with another woman clutched in her other hand. Broadway didn't know what to do with the ring, but didn't spare it another thought. He was about to bury himself in the next email requesting a consultation, eager to plunge right back into work, surrounded by a growing pile of shredded stone in a circle around his desk chair from falling asleep and waking in the same position night after night (funny how it had never occurred to him before that stone skin collected somewhere).

Work kept him busy. Work kept him from thinking about anything or anyone else. If he worked, he was being productive. He was helping people. He was doing something good. Private Investigator Broadway found people, discovered the truth, followed clues, dismantled notorious plans before they even had a chance to form. P.I. Broadway didn't hurt anyone except people who deserved it. He was determined to be that Broadway as long as he could, and no other version of himself. Especially the young, stupid version of him that he longed to purge from his memory.

Seeing the rest of his clan regularly, or visiting with Elisa ... they were experiences of a double edged sword; warmth and love and kindness from people he knew cared about him, and the constant reminder of who he'd been and what he'd done.

Work was easier. Work was simple. Work was helping.

It wasn't until after Broadway locked up his office and dove into the sky with Goliath that he realized how long it had been since he took the time to even enjoy a leisurely flight around Manhattan. He'd spent so long watching the world through the lens of his camera and collecting evidence and living his life on the ground that smelled of gasoline and exhaust and where humans made the messes he tried to clean up that he'd almost forgotten what the city looked like from above.

Up close it can get so ugly and warped but from far away, it's still beautiful.

Taking care of Hudson has become his new job. Feeding, dressing, grooming. Really, he's just as busy as he was before, except now he has time to do other things he likes; cooking, reading, spending time with his clan -- most of them, anyway.

There are brief interludes. Lexington, mostly. When the smallest of their clan isn't doing his own job. DJ work. Broadway still can't believe what a niche Lexington found in the underground techno club scene. He's insanely popular, too, which keeps him busy, but Broadway knows that Lexington is also trying to work away his own guilt.

When they get together, though, they don't talk about guilt. They don't do much talking at all. What is there to talk about? Their splintered clan? Hudson's failing health? Goliath's stubborn denial? None of those are easy to talk about - but kissing is easy. Having Lexington to himself for a night every couple of weeks is like a salve on a burn: temporary.

It all comes rushing back as soon as he leaves and Broadway is left alone, again, to try and hold everything together.

"Then what is it?"

Hudson's voice draws Broadway back into the present. Turning away from the fire, Broadway fixes his gaze on Hudson, watches the shadows shift on the old man's weathered face.

"I'm worried about you, Hudson." The words make Broadway's chest and throat ache. He swallows hard and looks down at the paper folded smoothly in his lap, the words beginning to blur with tears, becoming formless and illegible like they were twenty years ago, when he didn't know how to read.

Maybe the world was easier to look at when he didn't understand.

"Ah," Hudson says, rocking back in the chair and staring knowingly at the ceiling. His hands fold over his belly again. "Aye. I'm worried, too." He takes a deep breath, hands rising on his stomach, falling again. "Not about me, no. I'm an old warrior. I've won all my battles. I'm ready, when the time comes. But Goliath." Hudson closes his eyes, a wince crossing his face.

Broadway is immediately on his feet, but Hudson lifts a hand that makes him pause.

"And the others." Hudson opens his eyes again -- and they're damp. "I know Lexington is doing alright but I miss him, and who knows what Brooklyn is up to …"

Brooklyn's name rips through Broadway like a gunshot. He puts a hand over his mouth and stares hard at the fire, trying to name the emotions that rise up in his chest and throat when he blinks and sees a flash of Brooklyn's face on his eyelids, but he can't. It feels tender like a bruise and tastes like acid in his mouth.

"Trouble, no doubt, and, oh, I miss him too. I miss the clan we used to be." Hudson's hands clench into fists. "If I go and it's all still a mess, I'm worried Goliath will be all alone at the end of it and --" Hudson gasps for breath and shakes his head.

"Hudson." Broadway kneels at his elder's side and takes both of his leathery hands between his own. "I won't let that happen. I swear it."

Prying one hand free, Hudson searches for the side of Broadway's face and when he finds it he cups it gently, staring down at him but not seeing him. A wrinkled finger brushes one of Broadway's tears away.

"I want my family together again, lad," Hudson says, lower lip quivering. "Clan comes first. Clan always comes first. When did that stop being true?"

"It still is --"

"It ain't either!"

Hudson's raised voice startles Bronx, who lifts his head and stares between the two of them with a distinct frown and narrowed, concerned eyes.

"We're all split up." Hudson shakes his head and grabs a fistfull of shirt front over his heart. "Out there, doing your own things … human things. It isn't the gargoyle way, being apart. We stay together. We don't walk away. We don't abandon each other."

"I'll bring them home, Hudson," Broadway says, but Hudson isn't listening anymore -- his head swivels back and forth with sudden vigor, his breathing rapid and labored as blind eyes spin in a wild search.

"D'ya hear that, lad? The vikings!"

Hudson dives for his hip and withdraws his sword with a silver sound and a catch of orange flame on the blade; Broadway is quick, wrapping his thick hand around Hudson's wrist again and pushing it aside.

"They're comin', we have to protect that castle -- the eggs in the rookery --!"

"Hudson!"

Broadway's voice is loud and sharp and fills the entire room. It startles Hudson into stillness, his wrinkled face lost and frightened, and Broadway aches looking at him. Twisting the blade out of Hudson's grip, Broadway places it carefully on the floor and then takes Hudson's face in one hand, using the other to smooth white hair back along his scalp.

"I'm going to bring them home, okay? I promise. We'll be together again."

"Before I go?" Hudson says it gently, his earlier panic no longer touching his voice, and Broadway's instinct is to tell him that he's not going anywhere - but then he remembers Goliath in the kitchen, firmly rooted in his denial, how Broadway wanted to shake him and make him realize the truth so Broadway wasn't the only one looking at it alone. He realizes, then, that he's not alone - Hudson knows, Hudson has known longer than Broadway has, and his blind eyes see more than Broadway or Goliath ever will.

So Broadway nods. He says, "Yes, before you go," and Hudson sighs with relief and lets his head fall back against the chair.

Returning to his seat, Broadway falls into it, feeling heavy and worn and like he could sleep for another thousand years. He folds his arm and stares into the fire. There are too many thoughts in his head and he pretends that he is feeding each of them into the flames, all of them up in smoke.

"Lad?"

"Yes?"

"Could you read the paper to me?" Hudson shifts in the chair and reaches down for Bronx again. The beast inclines his head into the old man's touch. "Gotta make sure that the coppers are still fighting crime since I can't anymore," he chuckles.

There is only a beat of silence. "Sure," Broadway says, swiping the paper from the floor where it fell. He unfolds it carefully with sharp claws.

"Vandalism: Gang Activity?" Broadway reads for the second time, and his voice is only slightly choked.


	3. Chapter 3

"Be really careful with this stuff, okay? It's top of the line and costs a fortune, I had it shipped internationally which was a pain in the ass because I don't have a last name. Do you know how hard it is to do, like … anything without a last name? 'Of the Wyvern clan' doesn't really cut it for Amazon. Please, please be careful with this equipment, it's brand new - here, smell. Smell that? Still smells like the bubble wrap it came in."

"Lex, dude. Breathe."

Prying his hands from his precious merchandise, Lexington steps back and allows the stage crew to carry his speakers and soundbars into the club, his jaw sore from grinding his teeth so hard together. He can't help it - all those buttons and wires are like his babies.

"I know they're your babies," Cyclops says from the van where she sits in the open back door, enjoying her final cigarette before the show begins. "They'll take care of it, man. They always do."

Cringing when one of the crew nearly smacks the delicate case holding his laptop into the side of the door, Lex sighs, turning over his shoulder to look at his friend and manager. One brown eye watches him through a cloud of smoke and the other glows a ring of violet. Her smile is fond and knowing, and while Lex is wound like a spring, she is loose and relaxed with long legs spread and arms draped around the tattered denim of her knees.

Even without the bionic eye, Cyclops demands attention; her rich, dark skin is tattooed from her neck to her feet, a mosaic of seemingly disconnected images that somehow flow perfectly across the canvas of her body - there's flowers on one arm and a sailing ship on the other, portraits of family members he's never met next to profiles of Frankenstein and his wife, a crescent moon behind her ear and 'hope' and 'love' across her knuckles - his personal favorite is the little tombstone on her ankle that reads 'gender roles are dead' - Lex hasn't seen half of them, he's sure. Long purple dreads are secured away from her sharp, angular face with a band that glows green in the dark.

Lex clenches his empty hands together. "I could carry my own stuff in and set up, you know."

The end of Cyclops' cigarette burns orange between her fingers. "You could," she says, blowing two pillars of smoke out of her double pierced nostrils. "But does Skrillex set up for his own shows? Or - or Cher?"

"Cher?" A smile catches at the corner of Lex's mouth.

"Ah," Cyclops says, satisfied. "There it is. And don't sound so condescending. Cher is amazing." She slaps the empty space beside her. "Come on. Sit. Chill."

Grumbling, Lex obliges, sitting stiffly beside her and declining the offered cigarette with a shake of his head. He draws his black poncho more tightly around his torso.

"I'm trying to quit," he says, sounding very much like a person who does not actually want to quit. His eyes watch the cigarette moving in her hand like a dog waiting for their human to drop a piece of food.

"Is that why you're so wound up tonight?"

Silence stretches for a long time. Lex tongues the ring at the corner of his mouth.

"Oh." Cyclops' tone is knowing. "It's Brooklyn."

Lexington pulls his legs toward his chest and shrinks. After a moment he extends a hand silently and Cyclops places the cigarette delicately between his talons. He takes a long, slow drag, eyes closing as the toxic fumes fill his lungs and bloodstream, and then lets it out slowly through his nose.

"He wasn't at the last show."

"That doesn't mean anything." Cyclops speaks too quickly and like she's certain it absolutely does mean something. "He could be busy."

"Doing what?" Lex's voice is sharp. He glances sidelong at her and softens, apologetic. "I'm sorry."

Cyclops raises her hands, several rings clicking together. "Don't be. I understand."

Lex hands the cigarette back to her and Cyclops takes the final drag. She pinches the butt between her fingers, rolling it back and forth until the red cherry ember falls onto the pavement. When she smears her boot across it the ash spreads like glitter and burns for a second longer, and then it's gone.

Lex entertains the possibility that Brooklyn is innocently busy and feels like a hopeful child sitting before their chimney on Christmas Eve: naive and pitiful and stupid.

He knows exactly what Brooklyn is doing, can even think of a few people he might be doing it with, and knows the next time he sees him that Brooklyn will give the same exhausted speech all over again, and Lex will believe it all over again, and the cycle will start anew.

And every time there is Cyclops, his friend of five years and manager for three, trying to reassure him that Brooklyn is maybe not out there getting high.

Gods bless her, he thinks, watching her profile for a moment. Cyclops was the first human other than Elisa that he trusted fully - he'd made other acquaintances before her, mostly through Brooklyn, but the wound left behind by the Pack's betrayal never truly healed and he found himself always acting with a shield in front of him at all times. When the trio first started branching out and assimilating into human society, Lexington was the last to make friends of his own. Broadway had his work and Brooklyn had his parties and that left Lexington the task of trailing after his second in command to make sure Brooklyn didn't get so wasted that he hurt himself or turned to stone somewhere dangerous.

It was at one of those parties in some forgotten hole in the wall nightclub that he met Cyclops - she still wore an eyepatch then and went by a different name - tucked in a corner by herself, fiddling with a drone. He offered to help.

She stared at him and he waited for her to freak out over his gargoyle status or insist on taking a selfie with him like nearly everyone else in that club and every other club had done already, but instead she said, "I bet you can take some sick aerial shots of Manhattan and you don't even need a drone."

(She took credit for his successful Instagram he started a few weeks later, and he didn't mind at all.)

He owes a lot to Cyclops for where he is now; he got into music because of her, they started doing gigs together, she even came up with his DJ name - eLextrick - and when Broadway got sucked neck deep into his work and Brooklyn disappeared for days at time and going home was too painful, he knew that he could turn to stone in Cyclops' apartment and be safe.

None of his plans as a young gargoyle, even after waking up in Manhattan, ever included becoming a DJ. His interest in music up until the turn of the century was passive. It was Brooklyn who introduced him to electronica, dubstep, and music as a technological art. Meeting Cyclops was just the push over the edge.

Together they garnered decent local fame in the club scene. In the beginning, Lexington chalked up their surge in popularity to his species; the early shows left Lex feeling more like an exhibit being viewed at a zoo than an actual performer. But in the last couple years the novelty seemed to be wearing off, especially with the stories of what Cyclops would do to people if they got too weird about Lexington being a gargoyle.

More than one person had left his show with a Cyclops original custom bruise to the left eye. "It's like my brand," she'd say.

Cyclops clicks her tongue ring against the back of her teeth in thought. "I could try to talk to him," she suggests, but Lexington shakes his head.

"He doesn't want to listen." He crosses his arms. "I don't know what he wants."

"He's sick, Lex. Addiction is a disease." She sighs and wraps long fingers around the wrist of the opposite hand. "The problem is, when I was sick? I went to rehab. But there isn't really rehab for gargoyles. He'd get turned into a science experiment the minute he walked through the door." She releases her wrist. "Maybe he'd listen to me, one former addict to a current addict. I know a thing or two about what living in that world can cause you to lose." There is a pause. Cyclops is staring at one of her tattoos, one of the portraits of someone Lex had never met. Her fingertip traces the outline of the face before slipping away. With a deep breath, she meets Lex's gaze again."You could build him a new eye -" she nudges Lex with her elbow and winks a purple iris, "-but people? Can't rebuild those."

Lex smiles weakly at her. The eye was originally intended for Hudson many years before to replace the one damaged by the Archmage. But Hudson refused, and by the time he lost sight in his remaining eye he was too fragile to undergo any kind of surgery to try and gain it back. The eye sat untouched for more than a year after Lexington met Cyclops. By then she'd grown into her new name and he was almost afraid to mention it but ultimately was glad that he did; Cyclops was eager to try a functional body mod.

Alexander Xanatos performed the surgery for her, free of charge, simply for the publicity. He bought the patent from Lexington for a large sum, money that Lexington still hasn't touched. The eye has yet to give Cyclops any problems - while her vision isn't perfect, she can see, and she can change the color of the iris. That was a big selling point for her.

"I know I don't know Brooklyn as well as you do but I do know what it's like to be addicted, I know why I started in the first place … he's afraid of something, or ashamed, or something happened that he can't deal with. And what I needed when I was in the thick of it was someone to listen and not judge me for how I was trying to cope." Her fingers trace circles in the ditch of her elbow, across old track marks. "I know it sucks to be on this side, but imagine what it's like on his end. He's in so much pain that he gets fucked up just so he doesn't have to think about it."

Lexington tries not to think of it that way, of Brooklyn trying to drown his own pain, because it makes him feel like he failed Brooklyn, even if logically he understands that there was nothing more that he could have done. Broadway told him that plenty of times. No amount of begging or pleading or following Brooklyn around was going to keep him from fitting in and being as human as he possibly could be, and especially after Goliath stripped him of his rank … it was like rolling down a steep hill with no brakes. The crash at the bottom was inevitable.

"Shit's fucked," Lex mumbles.

Cyclops nods. "Shit is most definitely fucked, dude."

"Shouldn't you guys be putting on a show?"

Lex and Cyclops both jump and turn in the direction of the voice. Lex sees him standing half in shadow with hands deep in the pockets of his black trousers and his mouth in a crooked grin and Lex's heart leaps in his chest.

"Broadway," Lex says, like a breath of fresh air in this smog filled city.

Lex drops from the back of the van and hits the ground running; Broadway is all smiles and open arms by the time Lex meets him, launching off the pavement to be caught against his chest. Broadway's chuckle is warm and familiar in his ear.

There are few places as comforting as Broadway's embrace.

"I missed you, too." Broadway's hold is tight around Lexington's slim waist. Lex's feet dangle off the ground. "Hey, Cy."

"Hey, dude." Cyclops is standing too, grinning at them, swinging one leg toward the back door of the club. "I'll see you inside, Lex."

"Okay," Lex says, still wound around Broadway, and once she's disappeared he pulls back to look Broadway fully in the eyes. They're sad even with his lips still in a pleased smile, so Lex kisses him on the mouth before it goes away, tasting it, catching Broadway's surprise on his tongue.

"Mm, Lex-" Broadway's attempt is muffled by another kiss and Lexington's eager claws in his shirtfront.

"Whatever it is, it can wait," Lexington says, his breathing already heavy and hard. "I haven't seen you in weeks and I'm stressed and I'm horny so just shut up and kiss me-"

A warm hand slips under his poncho to sear across the flesh of Lexington's back. When Lex's mouth drops open in a gasp Broadway claims it with his own and walks to the open doors of the van. Both relieved and disturbed by Broadway's lack of usual mature sensibilities, Lex studies his face again when Broadway slowly lowers him to the car's floor. There is a moment caught in the orange glow of a streetlight where Broadway's face makes Lex's heart stop; he looks so worn with exhaustion and heavy with something he wants to say and torn between saying it and wanting to continue kissing Lexington until it's forgotten.

Lexington doesn't give him a moment to consider - he grabs Broadway by the collar and pulls him down on top of him. Broadway is a wall of firm muscle and being pinned beneath him is like being surrounded by rock; Lex curses their human clothes, aches for times when all of that delicious skin was much more accessible.

"We need to stop waiting this long to see each other," Broadway says. His tail wraps around the handle of one of the van doors and pulls it shut. Lexington's heart jumps in his throat. "Sexting really isn't cutting it for me."

An ache is beginning to coil in Lex's gut - a terrible, wonderful ache. "Maybe I'm just really bad at sexting then, because I could read your smut poetry all night."

Broadway rolls his eyes. "It's not poetry."

" 'Your body is an emerald forest under my blue waves'," Lexington quotes. " 'I hope I quench your thirst.' "

"Well," Broadway says, eyes heavy lidded as his tail whips the other door closed. "Do I?"

Lexington moans. "You are so fucking sexy right now," he says, breathing already labored, and he means it; Broadway in a button up and tie should be illegal. "Get down here and do something about it."

The van is too small to accommodate Broadway's form and wings comfortably, forcing him to crouch over Lexington the whole time, but neither are complaining. They're close and panting and grinding, and Broadway's tongue is in his mouth, on his neck. Sharp incisors drag across the skin of his jugular and large hands wrap around Lexington's tiny waist while Lex's deft hands make quick word of Broadway's belt buckle.

"Lex," Broadway says, and Lex immediately pauses, waiting. "Isn't this Cy's van?"

"Yeah." Lexington resists the urge to whimper impatiently. "And?"

"And … don't you think she'd oppose to us … doing … this … in her van?"

"Believe me, Broadway, Cyclops will be relieved that I got laid." Lex extends a hand and cups Broadway's cheek. "I know you came here with bad news. Let's just pretend it's not real for a little while longer, okay?"

Broadway's sad eyes watch him for a long, quiet moment, until his hand reaches up to cover Lex's at his cheek. He turns his mouth into the green palm and kisses the skin there, breathes the word, "Okay."

The floor of the van smells like smoke. Ripped wires and fast food straws and what he's pretty sure is a crayon are flattened under his back, and he's not sure when he lost the poncho but it's draped over the passenger seat of the van, and Broadway inside of him feels like becoming whole again.

The van rocks. It's too small and too fragile for every beautiful inch of Broadway, too weak under his force, and Lexington feels wonderfully pliable within his hands. It's crowded and rushed and there isn't time or space to draw it out, to really relish in the moment, but Broadway comes with Lexington's name in his mouth, and then replaces it with Lexington's length.

Lex can't see the sky but there are stars in his eyes nonetheless.

Once they catch their breath, Broadway opens the van doors again and they gulp in the night air. Lexington slips the black poncho over his head and climbs into the front seat, rummaging in the glovebox for a cigarette and a lighter.

"I thought you were quitting." Broadway's voice isn't accusing or condescending, just curious, watching Lex with fond eyes as the smaller gargoyle curls up next to him. Broadway winds one arm around his waist and holds him close against the building chill.

"There's nothing quite like a post coital cigarette, babe." Lexington cracks his thumb over the lighter's wheel and flames spark to life, throwing jagged shadows over his face. His free hand fishes into his vibrating pocket and withdraws his phone, giggling at what he sees.

"What?"

Lexington flicks the screen dark again. "Cyclops wanted to know if we made a mess in her van."

A pink blush rises in Broadway's blue cheeks. "Oh no. Gods. I'm so embarrassed. I don't know what came over me."

"Hey, big guy, it's fine. Honestly. Did you know one time last year she wrapped me up in Christmas lights when I was stone? Because she was 'feeling festive', she said. Consider us even now." Lexington cups Broadway's knee. "But you're right. Something did come over you."

Broadway shrugs. He picks at imaginary lint on his pant leg. "I just miss you."

His face says much more than that. Lex leans into Broadway's chest and nuzzles him with his bald head in a gargoyle gesture of affection, a long buried in instinct.

"I miss you, too."

There is a loud silence full of words Broadway doesn't want to say and questions Lexington doesn't want to ask. Lex's phone vibrates again, and this time the message is asking if he's going to come inside, that people are waiting for him to 'throw down those sick beats'.

Broadway's wings flex behind him. "Have you … have you seen Brooklyn lately?"

An involuntary flinch moves through Lex's wiry form.

"No." It's an angry, curt word on his tongue that Lexington swallows with his cigarette smoke. "Not in a couple weeks, anyway. Last I saw him, he was going on about quitting cold turkey. Again. And how he really meant it this time, and he was going to go to just one more party with his friends, one last time so he could go out with a bang or whatever, and of course I ate it all up because I always do." One hand raises to his head and smooths over the bald globe, shivering, his mouth crooked. "I don't know where my beanie is," he mumbles as an afterthought, looking down and away to scowl at the ground, like he'd find it there.

This conversation is an old and weary one, like a worn tape played too many times. A long time ago, Lexington defended Brooklyn every chance he could, even after Brooklyn was stripped of his rank, but the excuses dried up, and every feeling he had left was bruised.

Brooklyn isn't a violent addict or even an unfaithful one. He's the distant kind. The self hating kind. The kind that Lexington doesn't want to be angry with but is anyway, because Brooklyn consistently chooses substances over him and Broadway and the rest of their clan.

There have been too many nights when Lexington didn't know where Brooklyn was. Couldn't reach him by phone. Nowhere to be found. No one had seen him. There are too many panic attacks in Lexington's memory, calling Broadway crying, convinced Brooklyn is smashed up somewhere, or face down in an alley, overdosed to the moon. Lexington has found Brooklyn too many times on soiled mattresses in abandoned apartment complexes with the rubber band still tight around his arm, or lying alongside his own vomit, body pale and trembling, so close to death that he smells like it.

He can't remember how many promises Brooklyn had made to get better. Lex believed every one of them.

But Brooklyn's promises are as empty as his eyes when he's high.

Lex has known Cyclops long enough to understand that Brooklyn has a lot of demons that even he and Broadway don't know about, that people don't just turn to a life like that for no reason. There is something deeply broken in Brooklyn that neither they nor the others have been able to mend but it's not been for lack of trying, and Lexington feels both like a failure and like Brooklyn failed all of them.

It occurs to Lexington after several long moments of silence that Broadway hasn't said anything and when he twists to look at him again Broadway's eyes are staring hard at the ground. Tension has collected in his broad shoulders, bringing them nearly to his ears, hands twisting anxiously in his lap.

"Did something happen to Brooklyn?" Lexington's throat suddenly feels like it's closing. His hand whips out and strangles Broadway's wrist. A thousand images flash in his mind, none of them pleasant, and there is already a labored effect in his breathing.

Broadway shushes Lex's panic before it can rightfully come to form. "No. At least, I don't think so. I haven't seen him. But we have to find him. And you guys, both of you, have to come home."

"Why?" The hairless muscles over Lex's eyes struggle to meet over his nose.

Sharp teeth appear to bite at Broadway's lower lip. Lexington thinks about how those teeth were biting on his neck just a few minutes prior. That moment of bliss already seems like a lifetime ago, like the second they opened the van doors it slipped away into the night, absorbed by the sky and leaving only darkness. He reaches up, a green hand scratching at his jugular, trying to capture the ghost of a good feeling, but it's long gone.

Broadways speaks. But the words don't make sense. They can't make sense. Lexington shakes his head. Looks into his empty hands. The cigarette fell, half smoked, smoldering forgotten on the damp cement under his feet.

"What?" Lexington says the word out loud but his mouth feels numb and the sounds - the music thundering from inside the club and distant honks and sirens from the streets around them and their breathing and his heart in his ears - seem very far away.

Broadway takes a deep breath. He holds his hands together to keep them from shaking.

"Hudson is dying."

The words don't seem any more real the second time.

"I just saw him," Lexington says, coming back to his body, feeling the weight of his own bones again but it's foreign, too heavy. "Just, just a few weeks ago, and he was … he's old, he forgets things, but he's not, he isn't -"

"It's been more than a month since you've been home. Nearly a year since Brooklyn visited last." Broadway's words are laced with - not anger, never anger, anger's edges are too jagged and sharp and red for soft blue Broadway, but something that feels too much like anger's cousin. Disappointment. Abandon. Broadway's shoulders sag. "Not that I'm one to talk. I didn't visit much either until Goliath came and asked me to come home. I didn't realize how bad Hudson had gotten while I was away. While we were away. Lex, he's forgetting everything." Broadway's hands unfold and he stares at his empty palms with lost, sad eyes. "He doesn't know what year it is half the time. Sometimes he's asking for Jeffery, or Brooklyn, or he's worried about the Pack attacking, or the Vikings … he's waning. Fast. There isn't … there isn't much time. And if we're not all there, together, when the time comes … we'll all regret it. I know we will."

Lexington stares at the door to the club. It is closed. He tries to imagine a future without Hudson in it. He cannot see it. It does not exist. It cannot exist.

Clan are meant to be whole. Together.

Something in his chest squeezes painfully. He grabs a fistful of poncho.

His clan has been fractured for a long time. Lexington can't remember what together feels like anymore. When was the last time they were all in the same room at the same time? He closes his eyes and he remembers - that first night in Manhattan, waking from a thousand year sleep, and seeing them, all of them, once again. He remembers thinking, I will never leave any of you again. I couldn't bear it.

When he opens his eyes again, they're damp. He reaches for Broadway's hands and blue talons fill the spaces between his green ones.

Lexington says, "I'm sorry I've been gone for so long. I didn't know it was so bad."

Broadway says, "I think we all knew but no one wanted to face it."

Lexington thinks that Broadway is probably right.

The door bursts open with a bubble of sound. Cyclops is smiling when she opens it, her mouth open to say something cocky, but then she stops, sees them, stares at their joined hands.

"Everything okay?" She meets Lex's eyes and knows that it's not. She gives a slow nod. "You go. I'll handle this."

Lexington starts to stand. "I'm sorry, Cy -"

"Hey, no apologies needed. Boyfriend emergencies, man. I totally get it."

"Cyclops." Broadway stands too, one hand on the small of Lex's back. "Do you know where Brooklyn might be?"

Cyclops runs her tongue ring loudly on the back of her teeth and sighs. "I might have an idea."


End file.
